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Message: <blockquote data-quote="innerdude" data-source="post: 5785999" data-attributes="member: 85870">Gah, I had a lengthy post all typed up and making final edits, and somehow I closed the window. I'll say in short: I'm not claiming Gamism is BadWrongFun. Read my OP: I really, really like Gamism. I just find it disingenuous to claim that Gamism can really be "the point" of an RPG. An RPG exists as a way to facilitate a certain kind of shared sociality, and RPG rules exist to ensure that sociality is stable and enjoyable for the participants. When I'm talking about "social contract," that's what I'm talking about. You're right, every group's contract will be different. But what I'm saying is that an RPG group's social contract, whatever it is, must necessarily include the clause, "We're playing a roleplaying game, and not something else." This is a binary--no group can both be "Playing a roleplaying game," and "Not playing a roleplaying game" at the same time. And what I'm saying is that regardless of group and RPG system, that agreement stays in effect. That every RPG group's social contract includes the clause, "We're playing a roleplaying game," and thus includes some sense that there is a shared sociality around what they're doing.  And an RPG's rules are ultimately designed to support that sense sociality first. If a person decides that "gaming" an RPG's "rules" is fun, and they like the "competition," whether between players, or in the challenges of the GM, that's their prerogative. But the rules don't fundamentally exist for that reason. In other words, Gamism is necessarily always a function of "drift." You can "drift" a game towards Gamism--sometimes very effectively--but PURE Gamism (i.e., Gamism unmixed with anything else) fundamentally ignores the aspect of shared "pretending" and sociality. And if a game's rules do fundamentally exist to provide total Gamist experiences, it's probably not an RPG, but something else. And that's totally cool. Just don't conflate the two.Neonchamelon, you stated that Gamists can get experiences in RPGs that they can't get anywhere else. I agree with you. I just happen to think that the reason that's true is because RPGs provide experiences that are inherently not Gamist that Gamists don't get elsewhere. Gamists don't like RPGs because they're Gamist, they like RPGs because they're RPGs--i.e., they fundamentally contain elements that reach beyond Gamism. And my point is, they have to, to be considered an RPG at all.</blockquote>

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